As it is generally known, software that supports multiple users working on related tasks across one or more communication networks is often referred to as “groupware”. Groupware applications allow multiple users to access the same data, and may also provide tools and mechanisms to assist users in coordinating and managing projects. One example of a groupware application is Lotus Notes®, which is a multifunction groupware system and development environment.
A well known use of groupware products is as databases for users to submit problem reports to for support staff to work on. These systems may be referred to as “tracking databases.” Adequate solutions in this area must support significant amounts of communication between end users and the support team. Without an effective groupware solution, large numbers of electronic mail (e-mail) messages may be exchanged between end users and the support team to resolve each issue. Such e-mail message “flurries” may lack adequate records, and important information can be missed or lost if the right people are not copied on every correspondence.
In many cases, groupware has been used by support teams to track their progress in resolving outstanding issues. However, problems associated with independent e-mail messaging have persisted. One approach to avoiding the use of separate e-mail messaging in this area has been to provide a user interface construct, such as a comment button, within an issue record for an issue or topic, to allow users to enter comments directly onto the issue record form. However, during investigation of a given problem, both end users and support staff may enter many comments into the issue record. Accordingly, large numbers of people may simultaneously be accessing the issue record. If two or more people attempt to add their comments simultaneously, many problems can arise, potentially resulting in comments being lost and general dissatisfaction with the database.
Another approach taken by existing systems has been to create separate “response” documents containing each user's comments with respect to an issue record. Using such a system, each commenting user works directly with a separate comment document, and conflicts between two users in this regard are accordingly not an issue. However, there remain significant drawbacks to this solution, effectively making it unusable for a large-scale tracking database.
First, as more and more comments are added, the database begins to fill up with large numbers of comment documents supporting a single issue record, and any user wishing to understand the entire problem is forced to read through each separate document in order to see all of the comments. Second, as issues are resolved, all of the supporting comment documents continue to exist, and the database quickly grows out of control in terms of disk space and total number of documents.
For the above reasons and others, it would be desirable to have a new system for maintaining a database such as a tracking database. The new system should enable users to enter comments with respect to an issue record or the like in a way that is intuitive, and such that all comments can conveniently be reviewed. The new system should further operate without causing excessive numbers of comment documents to be maintained so that overall system performance is not unduly compromised.